Mother's Day Weekend at Holt Renfrew

What a beautiful weekend! We were very busy out and about doing manicures all weekend (more posts to come) and, as always, I thoroughly enjoyed my day spent at Holt Renfrew with all the lovely ladies who work there and who popped in.

The always awesome Deborah Lippmann product spread

Our inspiration board of nail-art ideas 

Check out some of the manicures we did that day below. We love using Lippmann products!

We used On the Beach here...such a great colour for summer!

This silver version of fairy nails was done using Stardust and Today was a Fairy Tale...such a pretty ombre.

Love this modern French manicure - we used Naked and Lady is a Tramp.

This is one of my favourites...I always gravitate toward orangey-corals. It's called Girls Just Want to Have Fun.. adorable!

This modern French tip was done using Fashion and Girls Just Want to Have Fun on the tips...mixing neutrals with brights is so fun...not too "out-there" with just a tiny pop of colour.

What a beautiful weekend...the weather was perfect so we hope you got to spend some time outside! See you soon and stay tuned for more manicures from this weekend :) Pin It

Amazing Bridal Manicure

A couple of weeks ago, we got to go to our dear friends Emily and James' super fun wedding. Even more awesome, we go to do the bridal nails! Let me tell ya, you gotta see her nails. Bridal nails are usually quite neutral and subdued, which is perfect when you want to show off your gorgeous, special dress. However, every once and a while, it's so much fun to see a bride rock a fun manicure. And, Emily went there! She came up with such an adorable wedding manicure that we had to share it with you.

We used Deborah Lippmann's Naked (one of our all-time favourites) on 9 of Emily's fingers.

And, on the ring finger, we used OPI's Mod About You for the light pink background of a...tuxedo nail! Mod About You is a very chalky and opaque, pale pink so it really looked awesome as a girly-alternative to the classic white and black tuxedo nail that we did here (remember Zooey Deschanel wore tuxedo nails to the Golden Globes?) Love it. Such a cute idea for a wedding.

How adorable is that!? Check out these phone pics I took of the wedding..I'm sure some beautiful profesh photos will surface soon - I hope there is a good shot of Em's nails with her beautiful dress, hair, and self!

Their awesome cake-topper (featuring a wolf-husband and owl-wife)

 The girls (look at that beautiful wedding dress!) Regine, Emily, Emilie (me), and Kristina

Emily and James sharing their first dance...awwww :)

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Thigh High Stockings Nails

I love taking manicures to the next level by adding cool details on the tips. With the popularity of the Lana Del Rey manicure, I have definitely fallen in love with keeping my nails pretty simple except for some special design on the tip. It's all about taking the classic French manicure (yawn) and shaking it up with a modern and feminine twist. These two manicures remind me of thigh high stockings, so that's what I've chosen for the name. Plus, who wouldn't want to sport the spicy playfulness of thigh high stockings on their fingertips? Count me in!

The first variation of this manicure is in black, with a line of black polka dots.

For this manicure, I used Essie's Sand Tropez and Deborah Lippmann's Fade to Black. 

The other version I came up with is red with scalloping - which creates a lace-y look.

For this varation, I used Deborah Lippmann's Naked and China Glaze's China Red.

Ooh la la! 

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Our Date with CTV

What an amazing day! This morning, we had the honour of teaming up with CTV Ottawa Morning Live for a chat and a couple nail art how-tos.

It was so much fun to be in the studio getting ready to go on and we had so much fun chatting with Lianne about what we do.

Getting ready to go on.

Getting our microphones!

Getting nervous/silly

Here is the clip of our first TV experience...so fun!



Step by Step Roses Manicure

After a basecoat and two coats of your desired base colour, roughly paint on two semi-circles onto the nails in your desired petal colour for the roses (you can use the regular polish brush for this step - it doesn't have to be perfect).

With a skinny green polish, paint on small triangular shaped leaves on either side of each rose.

Using a skinny black polish brush, roughly outline the roses and add a couple curved lines inside to add definition for the petals.

Outline the leaves with the same black polish.

And, voila! A perfect manicure for Valentine's Day.

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Champagne Bubbles New Year's Eve Manicure

Well, Christmas is over and I hope you all ate too much and relaxed too much because New Year's Eve is around the corner and we have to prep for parties! With that in mind, I have been brainstorming some New Year's Eve manicures and here is the first one - champagne bubbles! 

This one is understated and beautiful. It's soft, neutral, feminine and delicate with a tad of sparkly glitter to bring it up to new year's eve party level. I used two coats of Deborah Lippmann's Naked as the base.

Usually, I don't like most pinky-beige polishes on me because they can cause the "lobster hand effect" (certain polishes accent the red tones in my skin and my fingers can look straight up creepy - of course, this completely depends on one's skin tone). However, I was surprised to find out that I absolutely love how Naked looks. It kindof creates a mannequin hand...in a good way. It's very flattering as the colour elongates the fingers and the nail beds. 

For the champagne bubbles, I used Deborah Lippmann's Stairway to Heaven. 

I love this glitter. I used it to make a gradient concentrated on the tip of the nail to create the illusion of champagne bubbles rising in a glass. It is in a creamy gel base which is perfect for this manicure because it can easily be made into a gradient on the Naked base without leaving any obvious lines. The chunks of glitter in this polish are square and octagonal and iridescent and change from warm coppers and pinks to watery blues and teals. It's really adorable and I can't wait to try it on different bases. Here are some more pics of the manicure:

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